Today, Cesar Campos, Director of CCEJN is fasting in solidarity with Kern County residents. This community fast was started by residents and organizers in Kern County to protest the county’s adoption of an ordinance that serves to fast track and undermine environmental review of oil exploration projects–including fracking and other extreme well stimulation techniques. The style of this fast is one that allows people from all over the state to participate. Participants fast for 24 hours and then pass the charge to others in their community or other areas of the state who agree to fast for another 24 hours. With this fast, we hope to create a chain of support that extends across the whole state. Fresno is the first place outside of Kern County to participate, where Campos and Janaki Jagannath of California Rural Legal Assistance are undertaking the charge today. You can participate in this fast, by organizing a group of people in your community to fast for 24hrs and blog, post, or tweet about your efforts.

Kern County is the top oil producing county in the state, and the first place to have active fracking permits. Residents of Kern County have to disproportionately bear the effects of contamination associated with oil operations including poor air quality, contamination of groundwater, loss of agricultural land, etc. The ordinance adopted fast tracks permits for the next 25 years by allowing companies to propose and receive permits for projects without doing a full environmental impact report on those projects. Although the ordinance was adopted on Monday, there is still a lot that we can do to reverse that decision. Consider joining Kern County residents, Kern advocacy groups and CCEJN in this statement of solidarity. For more information contact Gustavo Aguirre Jr at gustavo.aguirrejr@outlook.com.